HIS EXCELLENCY

ARCHBISHOP OSVALDO PADILLA, DD

the Apostolic Nuncio to Korea

at the St. Benedict Parish Church on the 31st of August 2008

Magandang hapon sa inyong lahat- maayong udto ninyo tanan.  My name is Osvaldo Padilla, ako ay taga Cebu- Cebuano-nahirapang magtagalog- but I hope you will understand ang tagalog ko ay medyo mahina- I asked Fr. Alvin to help me translate in Filipino – pareho pala kaming bisaya- so pasensiya na lang kayo- we will just have to speak in English from a Filipino heart.
Salamat po Fr. Alvin for the opportunity to join the Filipinos here in prayer and worship.  Salamat sa inyong lahat- because now I can pray with you, and I can express my solidarity with your concerns in Korea.

The Holy Father sends you his greetings and his blessings- he is aware of the plight of migrants all throughout the world- especially with the reasons that made migrants come to other countries to work- the Holy Father is also aware of the efforts migrants have to make in adjusting to different cultures, different religions, different temperaments- in trying to mix the richness of our culture with the culture of the country we find ourselves.  The Holy Father, the Church, the priests, all of us share your concerns for your families, for your economic aspirations, for your living in Korea- with faith, with love and good example.

They call us migrants- I do not know if I am the oldest migrant among you- I left the Philippines in 1963, although I try to go home to Cebu if possible, once a year.  I can feel and I understand our longing to be in our country, to be with our family, brothers, sisters, and friends.  I can feel your solitude.  I know what it means to live far from the values we all treasure as a Filipino.  I miss the religious values of Church and family that is characteristic for a Filipino in the Philippines.
Perhaps, my case is a little different, because I left as a priest, with the spiritual identity of the priesthood- my motives were spiritual and I consider myself a missionary for God.  But from the human point of view, we all feel the same sentiment of emptiness when the need for mutual support and when some homesickness or need for solidarity strike us at some moments of our lives.  I pray to God that we all get the strength to be faithful to Him- to be examples of the values of faith and work- that we all have learned at home.  St. Paul says that the wisdom of God is wiser than human knowledge, and the strength of God is stronger that human strength.  We pray to God, everyday in our lives to give us the wisdom to discern his will for us, and the strength to endure-because he is our strength.     

                 
Pope Pius XII in 1952, described the first family of Nazareth as migrants.  They were migrants in the true sense of the word- exiles in Nazareth.  Jesus, Mary and Joseph first took refuge in Egypt to escape the fury of an evil king Herod.  They are the model, the example and the support of all migrants and pilgrims of every age and every country, of all refugees of any condition who… abandon their homeland, their beloved relatives, their neighbors, their dear friends, and move to a foreign land.” (Exsul Familia, AAS 44, 1952, 649).

Pope Benedict adds: “In this misfortune experienced by the Family of Nazareth, obliged to take refuge in Egypt, we can catch a glimpse of the painful condition in which all migrants live… we can take a quick look at the difficulties that every migrant family lives through, the hardships and humiliations, the deprivation and fragility of millions and millions of migrants, refugees and internally displaced people.  The Family of Nazareth reflects the image of God safeguarded in the heart of every human family, even if disguised and weakened by emigration.

The Holy Family is our example, our consolation and the source of our strength.  We ask God everyday to give us the strength to serve him, to work for him, to preserve all that good and noble in our culture, so that our aspirations for material and financial success can be enriched by the spiritual gift of our faith.  God loves you.  God loves those who are faithful to his commandments, God loves those who love him.  God loves also those who do not love him.  God also loves us and continues to love us, even if sometimes we forget to love him.  God is good to us in ways that sometimes we ourselves do not see or understand.  God sometimes writes his plan for us in crooked lines- sometimes through pain and suffering and difficulties.  But the lesson is that God loves us always, every day and in every moment of our lives.

For a reflection on the Word of God from today’s readings, I would like to look more closely first at the letter of St. Paul to the Romans.  In today’s readings it says:
            “I beg you through the mercy of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, your spiritual worship.  Do not conform to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind so that you might judge what is God’s will, what is good, pleasing and perfect.” Romans 12:1-2.

Christianity is the religion that is very simple, yet is also very complex.  It is simple because the answer to all our questions when we have spiritual problems is “Trust in God.  Have faith in him.”  They tell us- we have to trust and have faith in God, and solutions will come.  And yet it is complex because it utilizes the full extent of our intelligence to just begin to comprehend the mysteries that God has revealed to us. 

The complexities of what we mean when we say that Jesus is or that God is Three in One, or what we mean when we use the words salvation, redemption, predestination are what algebra and calculus are to the adult mind in comparison to the addition and subtraction we teach a child or the general math we teach an adolescent.

Perhaps there is no place where this is more obvious in the scripture than in the first eleven chapters of Paul’s Letter to the Romans.  Here Paul deals with the deep, mysterious truths of Christianity: he speaks about natural ethics, predestination, laws that bind and laws that free, resurrection, and so forth.

But then, after the eleven chapters of this, Paul changes directions, or rather, gives direction to all he has written.  “What use is the revelation of God to us?”  Paul is asking, “what use is God’s revelation if we do not allow ourselves to act upon it?”  But the lesson is: Knowledge of the faith, no matter how complex, no matter how intricate that knowledge might be, is useless if we are not transformed by this knowledge into Christians.  Look at Peter in the Gospel reading for this Sunday.  He knew that Jesus was the Messiah.  This passage comes right after the passage we had last Sunday when Peter says, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  Peter knew that Jesus was the Messiah, but he didn’t act on this knowledge.  If he really believed that Jesus was the Messiah, he would have accepted what the Messiah was saying as part of God’s plan.  But Peter doesn’t accept this.  When Jesus predicts his passion, Peter opposes the plan of God.  Peter, the one who proclaimed, “You are the Christ,” was siding with the devil.  That is why Christ said to him, “Get behind me Satan!”

It is insufficient for us only to attain an adult or even academic understanding of the complexities of our faith.  We must allow ourselves to be transformed by what we have learned, by what we have been given.  We must put on a new mind-set.  We are Christians in our daily lives of family, and of work.  The focus in our lives must not be ourselves.  That is the way of the world.  The way of Christ is the way of sacrificial love.  This is the meaning of our faith.  This is the transformation of the mind which St. Paul speaks about in today’s second reading.

We transform ourselves- with the goodness of Christ.  We are Catholics not because we know our doctrine, but because we live Christ in us.  May Christ have a meaning in our lives, everyday and always.  Amen.